The most dramatic moment for me in President Barack Obama's State of the Union address was his brief but clarion criticism of the U.S. Supreme Court for opening the floodgates of corporate funding in public elections.

If Justice Samuel Alito mouthed the words "That is not true," it simply illustrates the reality that the court made a political decision behind a First Amendment argument. The majority of five know it as well as the minority of four, and so they deny it. Alito is another Joe "You lie" Wilson. The Supreme Court has this month interfered in legislative powers of Congress as directly as it interfered 10 years ago, by a similar 5-4 majority, in the outcome of the presidential contest.

Obama's defiance of the court is the more credible because he is as well or better qualified than the justices to interpret the Constitution. He reminds me of Dwight D. Eisenhower, who defined and restricted the military-industrial complex, and did it successfully, because no one during his presidency was of greater military stature. Obama's credentials as a constitutional-law specialist out of Harvard Law School and the University of Chicago Law School faculty are sterling. He has the stature, as well as the courage and wisdom, to defy the judiciary-conservative complex.

The Supreme Court's poaching on the territory of Congress in this matter is insufferable. The Democratic majority of the Senate — hopefully, led by Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y. — needs to reassert the authority of Congress in setting rules for political advertising in political campaigns.

Strictly speaking, TV advertisements are not speech: They are images and remote voices, which by analogy are treated as speech. They may logically be divorced from unrestricted First Amendment free-speech rights and given limited, subordinate protection under the Constitution. Such a distinction is not exclusively the province of the Third Branch: It is pre-eminently the responsibility of the First Branch.

As for the predictable Republican filibuster: Cannot the Senate pass a resolution critiquing the Supreme Court decision and reasserting the authority of Congress without a supermajority of 60? If not, it is one more reason why the filibuster, which is not in the Constitution, must be modified or abolished.

Santa Fean Richard Frost is a retired professor of American history and Native American studies from Colgate University.